This week I had the opportunity to visit both Central Park on Friday and Prospect Park on Saturday; the things I learned are pretty amazing!
Central Park
Prior to heading out of the Macaulay Building, I grabbed a couple of plastic cups for anything I might find and would like to keep. Today was a very rainy day and I was hopeful that I would find lots of interesting insects. I entered the Park near the finish line of the upcoming NYC marathon, and learned that a lot of the paths leading to the north of the Park were closed. I felt as though my greatest chances of finding invertebrates would be in the Ramble (which was to the north), so I had to go the long way to reach it, but I found a cool thing along the way.
On a tree there was what looked to be a spider web, but the spider wasn’t in sight. Of course, the spider was gone as the weather grew colder. Or so I thought. Removing a piece of the bark revealed a large group of very small baby spiders.
I don’t know how spiders reproduce, but it seems that the mother spider lays her eggs and surrounds them with webs for protection, and then abandons them. It is interesting to note both the number of spiders produced and the four large ‘sacs’, which I didn’t open up, but it’s conceivable that there were more little spiders inside of them.
I got to the Ramble finally, stopping by the famous boulevard on the way and taking a snapshot of a duck.
Because of the rain, the Ramble was very wet, and there were leaves all over. At first there weren’t any signs of insects, but we had only just started. Digging a little, we came up with our second find:
After uploading to the iNaturalist site, we found out that this is actually known as a ‘wood louse’ or a ‘pill bug’. Pretty gross stuff. Under the surface there were many more of these, perhaps 4 or 5, that scurried away when we uncovered them to the light. It seems that these invertebrates prefer moist environments, and they also prefer to stay away from sunlight in some dark, damp enclave. Upon my visit to Prospect Park, I found that wood lice are a human hazard, and should be avoided.
A bit more digging in the same spot yielded our first centipede. Upon later research we found that it resembles most closely the species Geophilus Flavus. According to Wikipedia, it is found across Europe, and has been introduced into North America and Australia. It is most commonly found on seashores. At a different location within the Ramble, we found a couple more of these centipedes, all of the same species.
Along the way, we found two different types of ants: a very small one and a group of bigger ones. Because ants are found just about anywhere, we didn’t treat this as a significant discovery, but the fact that there are different types of ants may yield closer inquiry.
A very interesting thing that we found was a white ladybug. It was a small ladybug, and it was resting on a leaf. We took a nice shot of it.
It’s too bad the thing flew away before I had a chance to see it under the microscope!
A surprising thing we found flying around was what looked (to me) to be a miniature white grasshopper, because of its hind legs. It was so small and so frail that we couldn’t be sure. Take a look for yourself!
By the end of our visit we captured a second, larger pill bug.
big-pillbug
And again the centipede:
centipede
After this visit I am now confident that there is much more life to the Park than at first meets the eye. All the invertebrates that inhabit Central Park live beneath the surface, in dark corners, away from human eyes. The goal is to disturb the ground just enough so that you can spot them as they scurry away. Catching them is a challenge, but watching them scurrying about is its own reward.
